Baseball Legends Live On In Palm Desert

The Inland Empire has a rich baseball history, which has been showcased by Cal State San Bernardino’s “The Latino Baseball History Project.”

Now through March 24, CSUSB’s John M. Pfau Library is exhibiting “Legends of Mexican American Baseball: Jim ‘Chayo’ Rodriguez,” in the lobby of the Mary Stuart Rogers Gateway Building at the CSUSB Palm Desert Campus.   

The exhibition is part of a new series launched in 2010 by the Latino Baseball History Project, “Legends of Mexican American Baseball,” which highlights the achievements, both on and off the field, of notable Mexican-American ballplayers in Southern California. The project also features photographs and artifacts.

The campus will host a special reception on Wednesday, March 16, at 6 p.m. to celebrate the exhibition. Members of the community are invited to attend.  

The current exhibition is devoted to Jim “Chayo” Rodriguez, a lifelong resident of Corona, whose playing and coaching career in the Inland Empire has spanned a remarkable seven decades.

Now 81, Rodriguez began playing for the legendary Corona Athletics at the age of 13, a remarkable feat considering that the roster for the Athletics, one of the first and most successful of the all-Mexican American independent teams, consisted of men in their 20s and 30s. Rodriguez was a fixture in the outfield and third base for a variety of amateur and semi-professional baseball teams through 1970, including the Corona Merchants, Cucamonga Merchants and Colton Mercuries.  

He also started playing fast-pitch softball in his teens, and the list of teams he played for is a snapshot of Inland Empire history: Barto’s Washer, Hickory Barbeque, Transit Mix Concrete, Wink’s Café, American G.I. Forum, Gunderson T.V., Jalisco Café, Mona’s Café and Lindy’s Red Devils.

During the heyday of the Chicano movement, Rodriguez formed the Chicanos, a fast-pitch softball team based in Corona whose purpose was to redirect the energies of at-risk Mexican American youth from gang activities to athletic pursuits.

Rodriguez managed the Chicanos from 1973 to 1990, a period in which the team won several tournaments throughout Southern California and lived up to the fighting spirit of its logo, a drawing of the Mexican Revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, which was emblazoned on their team jersey.

 In 1983, Rodriguez retired from the workforce after 31 years in civil service, but he refused to hang up his spikes. In recent years, Rodriguez has kept active in the game, continuing to inspire and mentor young athletes as the assistant girl’s softball coach at Santiago High School in Corona. This year marks Rodriguez’s seventh year coaching at Santiago, highlighted in 2006 by the school’s first CIF Division I championship in girls softball.

 Among the many honors Rodriguez has received in his lengthy career include serving as the grand marshal of the 1980 Cinco de Mayo parade in Corona and being inducted in 1989 into the Hispanic Hall of Fame by the Inland Empire Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “It makes me happy and glad that people think about me as contributing something to the community in the area of sports,” said Rodriguez.